Choose Your Caption: Niqab as Illustrative of, Well, Everything

January 24, 2012 By Lara Alamad

The development of a university course about Muslim women in the media and the threats faced by Muslim women activists would appear to be two very different stories. Yet they were both illustrated by nearly identical photographs: a lone Muslim woman wearing black clothing + black niqab. This is far from the first time such unrelated photographs have been shoehorned into coverage of Muslim women.

Photo via the Guardian, alongside an article about a class on Muslim women and media.

While it’s tempting to stifle a yawn, these choices of stock photographs should be challenged because it is wrong on many levels. Here’s why:

Only a minority of Muslim women wear the niqab. Contrary to the bingo card-worthy cliches, most Muslim women (estimated worldwide population of over 500 million), do not live in Saudi Arabia (total population 26.2 million), or Afghanistan (total population 29.1 million), countries commonly associated with the face-veil. While face-veil wearing can be found in various forms across the world, it remains a minority practice. This remains true in the UK, where both articles were written.

Making the default as Muslim women = niqab wearer is making an inaccurate image as the default. If the media wants to talk about Muslim women, it should portray us in more representative ways, and here’s a tip: large numbers of Muslim women, if not in fact the majority, don’t wear hijab either.

And this photo was from the Independent, in an article on Muslim women activists facing threats.

Another issue with the usage of photographs of niqab wearers is that they are frequently stock photographs. They do not feature anyone actually involved in the story, but rather a Muslim women is used merely as an illustrative prop.

Then there comes the question of agency. Did the women in these photographs give their permission for their photograph to be taken? Did they agree for it to be used to illustrate news stories that discuss anything from niqab bans to domestic violence? Did they actually get paid for the photograph in the first place?

Such lazy usage of stock photographs is indicative of a wider attitude of stereotyping and dismissiveness towards Muslim women.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ,

All-American Muslim, All-About Asra Edition

December 20, 2011 By Lara Alamad

When an act of bigotry or prejudice occurs, it is often accompanied by an insidious denial that an act of bigotry is even occurring.

You would think that cancelling advertising during the reality television show All-American Muslim because showing Muslims as ordinary people apparently equals doom to the US – as the company Lowe’s (and others) did – could not be seen as anything other than horribly Islamophobic.

Some of the scary characters from All-American Muslim.

Wrong! Come with me, to a place where reason and facts are lost in a swirl of self-promotion, self-aggrandisement, and truly wretched amounts of internalised Islamophobia. In case you hadn’t already guessed, Asra Nomani has shared her insights with us and what a shallow, murky puddle it is.

Let’s start with the title: “All-American Muslim: Why Advertisers Are Right to Boycott,” and go straight to Nomani’s second paragraph to see her reasoning:

“Forget political correctness. Lowe’s, the national chain, did the right thing in pulling its advertising from the series. The company said it killed advertising from the show because it had become too controversial, but there is another legitimate reason the company could have given for yanking its advertising: it’s bad TV.”

Firstly, to dismiss the reasons behind Lowes’ cancellation as avoiding controversy, while glossing over the hate actual campaign waged by the Islamophobia network against the show, is highly disingenuous. Note the words “another legitimate reason [emphasis mine],” implying that to Nomani, Lowe’s actions were already perfectly legitimate. Not only that, she goes on to state that she will now purchase from Lowes in the future “As an American Muslim.”

Then she talks about the show being “bad”, so companies should cancel advertising anyway. A quick glance at the TLC wiki page shows that this is the channel responsible for such high quality programming as “Toddlers and Tiaras”, a show hideous on many levels, yet not subject to any boycotting campaign. So the “quality” issue a misnomer. There’s also the more important concern that there are groups that find programmes with positive (or even just normal) portrayals of Muslims so abhorrent that they will launch highly organised campaigns to blot them out. But no, these concerns are just a “straw man” to Nomani.

Now, those familiar with Nomani’s oeuvre might be wondering, “Where is the part where she talks about how all Muslims are a bunch of extremists and she’s the only Muslim who is enlightened and modern and swishy? She always writes about that.”

Indeed she does, and this article is no exception as she gleefully cherry picks anything in the show disagreeable to her as “a Muslim seeking some sort of challenge to conventional, traditional, old-school Islamic interpretation reminiscent of the Dark Ages.” Again, she ignores that the programme shows a Muslims who with differing types of practice.

Nomani states that Muslims defending the show are just indulging in groupthink and after all, there is “real” Islamophobia out there. However, to her, this Islamophobia is not a big deal anyway, as Muslims are apparently just as powerful at suppressing any criticism of Islam, and thus supposedly stifling debate. Considering that Nomani’s concept of debate involves sucking up to right wing Islamophobes for fun and profit while using a scattershot of tropes from Derailing for Dummies, I’m not sure it is debate she wants, but increased hatred and suspicion of Muslims and a decreased platform for any Muslim (apart from her) to speak against that hate.

Editor’s note: Comment moderation may be slower this week, as I am traveling.  I apologise in advance if your comment takes some time to appear. – Krista

When an act of bigotry or prejudice occurs, it is often accompanied by an insidious denial that an act of bigotry is even occurring.

You would think that cancelling advertising during the reality television show All-American Muslim because showing Muslims as ordinary people apparently equals doom to the US – as the company Lowe’s (and others) did – could not be seen as anything other than horribly Islamophobic.

Wrong! Come with me, to a place where reason and facts are lost in a swirl of self-promotion, self-aggrandisement, and truly wretched amounts of internalised Islamophobia. In case you hadn’t already guessed, Asra Nomani has shared her insights with us and what a shallow, murky puddle it is.

Let’s start with the title: “All-American Muslim: Why Advertisers Are Right to Boycott,” and go straight to Nomani’s second paragraph to see her reasoning:

“Forget political correctness. Lowe’s, the national chain, did the right thing in pulling its advertising from the series. The company said it killed advertising from the show because it had become too controversial, but there is another legitimate reason the company could have given for yanking its advertising: it’s bad TV.”

Firstly, to dismiss the reasons behind Lowes’ cancellation as avoiding controversy, while glossing over the hate actual campaign waged by the Islamophobia network against the show, is highly disingenuous. Note the words “another legitimate reason [emphasis mine],” implying that to Nomani, Lowe’s actions were already perfectly legitimate. Not only that, she goes on to state that she will now purchase from Lowes in the future “As an American Muslim.”

Then she talks about the show being “bad”, so companies should cancel advertising anyway. A quick glance at the TLC wiki page shows that this is the channel responsible for such high quality programming as “Toddlers and Tiaras”, a show hideous on many levels, yet not subject to any boycotting campaign. So the “quality” issue a misnomer. There’s also the more important concern that there are groups that find programmes with positive (or even just normal) portrayals of Muslims so abhorrent that they will launch highly organised campaigns to blot them out. But no, these concerns are just a “straw man” to Nomani.

Now, those familiar with Nomani’s oeuvre might be wondering, “Where is the part where she talks about how all Muslims are a bunch of extremists and she’s the only Muslim who is enlightened and modern and swishy? She always writes about that.”

Indeed she does, and this article is no exception as she gleefully cherry picks anything in the show disagreeable to her as “a Muslim seeking some sort of challenge to conventional, traditional, old-school Islamic interpretation reminiscent of the Dark Ages.” Again, she ignores that the programme shows a Muslims who with differing types of practice.

Nomani states that Muslims defending the show are just indulging in groupthink and after all, there is “real” Islamophobia out there. However, to her, this Islamophobia is not a big deal anyway, as Muslims are apparently just as powerful at suppressing any criticism of Islam, and thus supposedly stifling debate. Considering that Nomani’s concept of debate involves sucking up to right wing Islamophobes for fun and profit while using a scattershot of tropes from Derailing for Dummies, I’m not sure it is debate she wants, but increased hatred and suspicion of Muslims and a decreased platform for any Muslim (apart from her) to speak against that hate.

Filed Under: Television Tagged With: ,

Hot Off the Press! White Women Are Converting to Islam!

November 23, 2011 By Lara Alamad

Look at pictures of real live white women wearing hijab!

All the exclamation marks in existence could not hide that these are the usual soundbites in a story that gets repeated more often then Home Alone at Christmastime. The problem with these statements being that not only do they erase the experiences of convert from other ethnicities, they also have a “A white person choosing to be Muslim, the horror!” undertone to them.

Kristiane Backer. Photo via The Independent.

 

So while these statements are linked to the publication of a new study “A Minority within A Minority”, which claims to be the UK’s biggest study on converts to Islam, there is nothing new about The Independent‘s framing of it, which, while better than most, still chooses a picture of a white woman wearing hijab as the largest, most prominent image. (Note: I read the article in print form.)

The article talks briefly about the study finding that converts can feel isolated both from their  communities of origin and the Muslim community, which is true, but not exactly news. However, there then comes the finger wagging about other religions being better towards converts: “While other major religions have established programmes for guiding new believers through the rigours of their faith, Islam still lacks any such network, especially outside the Muslim hubs of major cities,” to which one wonders, really? Certainly, other religions may have more structured pre-conversion/teaching programmes, but ultimately new converts are still reliant on community support. There also the fact of Islam not being a centralised network type of religion, despite the media thinking otherwise.

Also mentioned is converts finding more in common with other converts, yet while the study is described as Leicester-based, the article fails to mention that it was probably using the New Muslim Project ( a UK-wide convert organisation providing support and social activities for Muslims, which is based in Leicester) to seek respondents, so the sample group are going to be people who actively socialise with other converts anyway.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture/Society, News Tagged With: , ,
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